Using Moodle quizzes with question banks to review and/or test knowledge

Published on 18 November 2024 at 14:23

by Ivana Vulic & Matthew Wallwork ; English  Language Centre, School of Languages, Xi'an Jiaotong-Liverpool University

Moodle quizzes (LMO at XJTLU) have been widely used already for practice, self-study, and online exams. However, they can also be used for targeted reviews or in-class tasks. The question banks option outlined here can mitigate the exam security issues of students taking in-class tests at different times for summative assessment; it can also simplify the setup and administration of formative assessments. Furthermore, the auto randomisation function can reduce tutor workload once the initial setup has been done, and improve exam security.
We want to demonstrate how to utilize the existing tools for assessing knowledge without the need to do any grading. We will demonstrate how to create an assessment quiz for students’ understanding of the Academic Integrity Policy in Year 2. This type of quiz has proven to be effective in an AY2023-24 Year 2 EAP course as a summative assessment tool for over 900 students.

 

The aim of the activity is to review or assess students’ knowledge in exam conditions and for students to gain insight into how well they understood the concepts and knowledge presented in class with instant feedback. This makes it an effective tool for in-class tasks.

 

Activity length

5-50 min

Technology  used

Moodle Quiz

Course area

EAP

Level

All

Target skill(s)

Any


Set-ups: 

Step 1: Create the questions.

Draft your questions and answers in a Word document, and group them into different categories. Ensure that you do not create any open-ended questions that may require manual grading, such as providing longer answers.


It is advised not to use any numbering or bullet points so they do not transfer to LMO and create additional spaces when transferring questions.

Step 2: Create a question bank and transfer questions to LMO.

Choose question bank from the drop-down menu on your course page. (Image 1) Choose Categories from the drop-down menu. (Image 2)

 

Add a new category, (Image 3) but make sure you add it to your own module’s question bank. (Image 4) The purpose of this is that your questions are only available on your module page and, therefore, cannot be viewed by anyone else.

 

Once when the new Assessment category is created (in this case, In-class Test: Academic Integrity) (Image 5), you can add different subcategories. (Image 6) The purpose of this is to be able to select a number of randomised questions from each subgroup for the assessment quiz. This way, the students are less likely to have the same questions in their tests.

 

It is also advisable to add the titles to each category so the students know the question focus and/or a theme, for example, whether it is citations (subcategory 1), referencing (subcategory 2), etc. (Image 7)

 

Now, you need to click on the relevant category to add the questions. Start with the titles if you plan to use them. The question type you need for the titles is ‘Description’.

 

When done with the titles, do the same with the remaining subcategories. Transfer all questions to their corresponding subcategories. Now your question bank is ready. (Image 8)

Image 1. Opening question bank

Image 2. Open categories

Image 3. Add category

Image 4. Select own module for security purposes

Image 5. Add a separate category for your assessment in your own module (skip 4)

Image 6. Adding subcategories

Image 7. Empty categories

Image 8. Populated question bank

Step 3: Setting up Moodle quiz for assessment.

Now, lets’ set up the Moodle quiz for assessment purposes. We recommend using the quiz settings used for assessments. Your university will have specific course requirements for the settings, so ensure you adhere to them. For XJTLU teachers, please follow the Online Quiz Standardization settings provided by the LMO team.

 

Assessment quiz settings:

Quiz name – example: “In-class Test: Academic Integrity”

 

Timing

Open the quiz: Enable / Set date and start time

Close the quiz: Enable / Set date and start time

Time limit: Enable / X minutes

(Show more)

When time expires: “Open attempts are submitted automatically” (default)

 

Grade

Attempts allowed: 1

 

Layout

New page: “Every question”

Navigation method: “Sequential”

 

Question behavior

Shuffle within questions: Yes

How questions behave: Deferred feedback

 

Review options

Tick ‘Marks’ ONLY in the columns 2-4! (Deselect all other options)

Extra restrictions on attempts

Require password: [enter a set password]

Plagiarism policy: Must be acknowledged

 

Common Module Settings

Availability: Hide from students (Show before the assessment)

Force language: “English”

Group mode: Visible groups

 

Restrict access

Must be restricted to groups taking the test (Image 9)

 

Activity completion

“Student must receive a grade…”

 

Note: Questions shouldn’t be shuffled; otherwise, the section headings will appear in random places (Image 10).

Image 9. Restricting access to several groups

Image 10. No shuffling of questions

Step 4: Adding questions from the question bank.

Now that your question bank is done and the quiz is set up, you must add the questions.

 

Click on the quiz and click on the Add question option. (Image 11) Choose ‘Add from a question bank’. (Image 12) In the categories tab, open the category where you put the titles. Select the title you wish to add and add it to the quiz. (Image 13)

 

The next step is to add a random selection of questions from each category. Click on ‘Add’ but this time, choose the “+random question” option. (Image 14) Open the subcategory you wish to choose the questions from and choose the number of questions you would like to appear in the quiz, for example 5/14. Click “Add random question”. (Image 15) Now each student will have a selection of 5 random questions selected from that subcategory. Repeat the process with the remaining titles and questions. Your quiz is now ready.

Image  11. Add question option

Image  12. Adding titles

Image  13. Adding titles

Image  14. Adding randomised questions

Image 15. Adding randomised questions

Procedure:

Administering the assessment:

Share the password with the students a few minutes before the test and let them get started. There are a few things to be aware of to improve the academic integrity and reliability of the tests:

 

  • Students will use their own devices to take the test while physically present in the examination room. It is technically possible for students to share the password with offsite friends who could then take the test remotely, so it is important to observe correct exam procedures to reduce the risk of this (check attendance, make sure phones are turned off and WeChat etc. are not open on the students’ devices, etc.)
  • When generating passwords, be careful of characters which may be ambiguous, for example, numeral one/capital “i”/lower case “L” etc. The confusion these may cause can waste valuable minutes during the assessment time.

 

The procedures outlined above have no provision for feedback to students because the tests are assumed to be summative. For formative assessments, instantaneous feedback can be provided if desired. This can be accomplished by changing the quiz settings in ‘Review options.’

 

Grades can be retrieved from the Moodle quiz section by clicking on the “Reports” button and downloading as an XML or Excel

Caveats and alternatives:

    Caveats:

    As mentioned above, students may resort to cheating or accessing the test remotely. The lecturer must monitor actual class attendance and invigilate carefully if the activity is a summative assessment to ensure students are not sharing screenshots etc.

    Alternatives:

    1. If used by several lecturers or on different days and times – create blank quizzes with the correct settings and add questions from the question bank to each one separately. Do not duplicate the quizzes with imported questions from the question bank!
    2. If used for testing purposes, the feedback options should be limited to the score only. If not, feedback on each answer and/or additional explanations could be given (Quiz Review options settings).
    3. If used for listening or reading, a different set of questions can be given to two groups of students set up as two groups of questions in the language bank (or more, as circumstances dictate).
    4. For increased security, Moodle (LMO) can export entire randomised quizzes in various formats, including CSV and XML, enabling the test to be converted to a paper-based medium should this be deemed necessary.

    Download:

    Example Question Bank_ICT Academic Integrity
    XML file – 92.4 KB 10 downloads

    Add comment

    Comments

    There are no comments yet.